I regard love as the primary fact of God's creation - it is love that makes creation possible. Love is the opposite of chaos; and it is the love between Beings that is what 'organizes' chaos into creation.
Furthermore, it was another aspect of love that enabled the new dispensation brought-on by Jesus Christ - because Jesus enabled Men - by resurrection - to make a permanent commitment to love; such that each resurrected Man would embrace the goals and methods of God's creation and could then take his place as a Son of God - henceforth living in harmony with all other Men and with God and Jesus Christ.
So, real (Christian) love is always personal, always directed at a 'person': a Being. There is no such thing as abstract love, and real love cannot be diluted or extended beyond the actual love of actual known Beings.
Love is inter-personal, and requires at least two Beings - therefore real love is not comparable to a force, a field, a spirit, or any 'thing'.
Real love is not, cannot be, and should not be universal or equal - it is individual and specific.
Love is a choice, and cannot be imposed... Love is a choice and not a default state; which is why Heaven is an opt-in situation; and why that opt-in is dependent on love.
Consequently Heaven cannot be entered by those who cannot, or will not, commit to love of God (this 'cannot' including both those incapable of love, and those who reject love as their over-riding priority).
And Heaven will not be entered by those who regard love as impersonal, abstract or generalized; because such people will not want Heaven. They will instead want something else...
Perhaps they want some kind of diffuse, impersonal state ('Nirvana'?) in which there are no persons, no selves, no inter-personality; only a generalized awareness and perhaps the experience of bliss?
I think these realities need emphasizing because there is a tendency for Christians to abstract and dilute love towards a 'universalism' that makes no distinction between the followers of Jesus and everyone else.
And this abstraction/ dilution is met by a tendency among non-Christians to misinterpret Christianity in the same impersonal and abstract fashion so that it becomes just one among many possible paths to the same destination.
But the truth of Christianity - as it may be known from the Fourth Gospel and by intuition - is that Christian love is the basis of the Christian religion; and Christian love is personal/ interpersonal - and it must consciously be chosen.
Christian salvation is to love and follow Jesus to resurrected life everlasting in Heaven - this happens after biological death. To be a Christian - here and now in this earthly mortal life - is to make a decision to accept Jesus's gift of resurrected life; to make that our highest priority which happens by loving Jesus.
And, as with all real love; love of Jesus Christ is both a choice and a desire from deep within; it begins with our deepest yearnings and motivations, and is completed by our conscious decision.
There are many other things a Man might want or decide, and many other possible priorities - but these are not Christianity
2 comments:
This is an important post, especially now. Sadly, I get the sense many Christians will not understand the central message - so ingrained is the faux altruistic, universal love of leftism; to say nothing of how this faux love is used to guilt and shame Christians into "loving" abstractions and "things" they cannot and should not love. Unfortunately, organized Christianity has also played a rather significant role in helping with the abstraction/dilution of love.
Thank you, I needed this post.
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